Rumford Falls, Buckfield Railroad, ca. 1870. Rumford and Buckfield are two of the many communities participating in RSU #10’s 2012-2013 MCHP team.

This month, the fourth cohort of Maine Community Heritage Project teams begin their year-long journey to build a local history website on Maine Memory Network. Whereas in the past teams have consisted of organizations from a single town or city, the 2012-2013 program year features two broad-based regional groups: one from Mount Desert Island and one from RSU #10, the Western Foothills Region. That region consists of 12 cities and towns, three-quarters of which will be participating in some way in the project.

Participants on the two teams will gather at MHS on July 18 and 19 for a celebratory kick-off dinner and orientation. The sit-down dinner, held at MHS, will involve team introductions, a welcome by MHS executive director Steve Bromage, and an opportunity to tour the new Wired! museum exhibit. The orientation, which takes place all day on the 19th, covers aspects of what makes for “good history,” project planning, and MMN scanning and cataloging, and features a panel of MCHP veterans from previous teams.

The new teams begin working on the project in earnest in August and continue throughout the academic year, with an unveiling of their websites scheduled for late May, 2013.